A new national study shows evangelical Christians are a mixed bag when it comes to personal spiritual growth and maturity. Some are thriving spiritually while others have essentially given up on having their beliefs be an active part of their life. A majority are somewhere in the middle, struggling with a variety of spiritual issues.
The new report Uneven: Success, Stagnation, and Delusion in Spiritual Growth, released this week by Grey Matter Research, explores the spiritual growth and maturity of American evangelicals. The study of over 1,000 adults with evangelical beliefs details their spiritual activities, attitudes, and perspectives.
While spiritual growth is measured by much more than activities, an example of how mixed things are in the evangelical population is the “spiritual engagement” measure. Someone is considered to be fully engaged (on a scale of 0 – 25) if they typically:
- Read the Bible daily
- Study the Bible (beyond just reading it) multiple times per week
- Attend worship (in-person or online) weekly
- Attend a small group Bible study or prayer group weekly
- Pray multiple times per day
Just 11% of evangelicals have full spiritual engagement, although another 22% are highly engaged. On the other end of the spectrum, 24% have low engagement, while 4% have none at all. Most common (38%) is to be moderately engaged: doing only a few of these activities regularly, or engaging on a sporadic or infrequent basis.
Additional examples of success, stagnation, and delusion from the research:
Success
- The study finds a strong link between encouragement/accountability and higher levels of spiritual engagement. For instance, evangelicals who have someone in their life who regularly encourages them to read the Bible have much higher levels of readership. Those who meet frequently with a spiritual mentor have significantly greater overall spiritual engagement.
- Church lay leaders are substantially more advanced and engaged spiritually than are non-leaders in nearly every way. Churches have done well in engaging more spiritually mature people for leadership.
Stagnation
- Because only a minority of evangelicals are highly engaged spiritually, one-third of all lay leaders in churches still have moderate or low levels of engagement.
- Less than 1% of adult evangelicals came to their beliefs in the last year, despite all the time, effort, and money spent on evangelism among adults.
- When they displease God, only 60% attempt to learn and grow from their failure, and just 36% take steps to ensure they don’t repeat their failure.
Delusion
- The less spiritually engaged an evangelical is, the more likely that person is to say their spiritual life as a Christian needs no changes or improvements at all.
- Most evangelicals who don’t regularly attend church do not list a return to church as their greatest need for growth. Instead, they wish to grow without involving church. The same is true for Bible readership – infrequent and non-readers rarely list Bible readership as their greatest spiritual need.
Ron Sellers, president of Grey Matter Research, explains that while the study points out numerous concerns, there is positive news as well. “One-third of evangelicals are highly involved when it comes to spiritual activities,” Sellers states. “Church lay leaders are far more likely than others to be spiritually mature, which is as it should be. We’ve demonstrated the clear link between accountability/encouragement and spiritual growth. And most evangelicals realize they are not where they could be spiritually, which is a necessary foundation for growth.”
At the same time, Sellers did point out many concerns, of which Christian leaders need to take note. “Most evangelicals are not involved in sharing the gospel with others. Only about half have really prepared themselves for spiritual growth. Many truly don’t appear to understand – or maybe care – what role church and the Bible play in spiritual development, and a significant minority have essentially checked out entirely even though they continue to hold basic evangelical beliefs. There’s definitely good news, but there’s also a tremendous amount of work to do.”
The research for Uneven was conducted in conjunction with Pastor Bill White of Christ Journey Church (Coral Gables, FL), as part of the work surrounding his recent book Mature-ish: Your Mission from God, Should You Choose to Accept It… The full research report is available by contacting Grey Matter Research (ron@greymatterresearch.com) or through https://greymatterresearch.com/spiritual-growth/.
About Grey Matter Research:
Grey Matter Research is a marketing research and consumer insights company with extensive experience working with faith-based clients and studying religion in the US. Grey Matter works directly with many faith-based and non-faith-based organizations and companies.